You Know She's a Toddler...

...when you lock yourself in the bathroom for a few moments of privacy, and suddenly she starts BANGING on the door and screaming.

...when the baby who always went to sleep at night really easily cries so much it wakes up Micah and he begs you to go sing to her more.

...when she refuses to nap, and instead trashes the house, but as soon as you get in the car to pick up the brothers, she falls fast asleep.

...when she wakes from her naps, cuddles for exactly one minute, and then runs off to climb the jungle gym at the brothers' school playground - with no help.

...when she grabs your hands to show you that she REALLY wants you to pick her up NOW.

...when she tries to draw on the minivan and the garage door with chalk, and when you gently try to guide her away, she does a nice little fake-out and goes around you to do it some more.

So anyway, here's my "Tiny Tot in Tutu":

Taking things off the shelf:Sorting stars:

And this evening in the driveway (the chalk incident, among other fun things):

Sofia and Sam:
Sam and Micah:
Yes, Mommy and Sam!

Infiltrating the "Typicals"

Yup, we did it. Sofia took her first ballet class! A last minute decision, since I just found the Ashland Rec Center brochure yesterday and noticed this class. I registered at 11am, and the class started at 11:30. Whew.

I'd decided (and our speech therapist agreed with me) not to mention anything about Sofia when I registered. I did write "Down syndrome" under the "Medical Issues" section of the registration form, and when we got to the class, I let the teacher know that Sofia uses sign language. But that's it. Otherwise we made no mention of anything.

The class is for ages 2-3, so most of the kids were all over anyway. Sofia was very happy exploring the room, especially the wall of mirrors, and was quite fascinated by a baby in a carrier and by the newspaper reporter who was taking pictures of the class. She kept walking over and smiling for him (it looks as if he did get some great pictures!). She's such a little ham!

The teacher said she was really thrown off by the photographer, so I hope next week will be a little better, but it was a good chance for the kiddos to get used to the room and try on tutus and crowns. We had a black leotard and a lovely peach ballet skirt in the hand-me-down bag, so Sofia was wearing that and absolutely refused the purple tutu we offered, but she did enjoy wearing the crown.

Now we're back home. I have to try to do some Hebrew homework. I finished the review quizzes last night, and I didn't do as well as I expected, especially on the last section. So I really need to review more. Sigh.

Lazy Day

Well, we survived Rosh Hashanah. Dinner Wednesday evening was here, just the 5 of us and Laura, David's sister. David was exhausted and excessively stressed. Services weren't until 7:30, so at least we were not rushed.

The evening service went ok. We hadn't made too many changes.

In the morning, I sent David and Laura and the kids to our shul, for two reasons. One, the kids' services at TI are much more robust than in Ashland (I was leading the grades 2-6 service in Ashland). Two, since so many of our friends' kids have had lice recently, I didn't want to take a chance with the carpeted playroom at the church in Ashland!

So I went by myself. We'd made a LOT of changes to the service, most importantly to move the UneTaneTofek up to Shacharit and dramatically chip Musaf. I didn't like it. Musaf was insanely short, and when the rabbi introduced Hineni, she just said "now Francine is going to sing the Cantor's prayer." Since there was hardly anything else after that, it seemed meaningless. Also, since she's really taking them in the "post-modern" self-spiritual mode, I felt quite superfluous.

I got home well before 1pm, and after cleaning up a bit, went to meet my family over at the M's house, where we go every year for RH dinner (they come to us for seder). We had a lovely afternoon, as usual. Sofia wore the same dress she'd worn up in Vermont:
The boys had a great time playing with B's Lego collection. David and both fell asleep on the couch at different times, so we were there until 6pm. When we got home, I had to make soup for Friday, and the kids played while David did some work.

Friday morning, I sent them off to TI again, but this time Ashland felt much better. It was a "Family Service", dramatically different from the regular service, but I felt more a part of it (and I didn't have to lead a separate kids service, which helped). It was short, 'tho - I was home by 12:10! So I took the extra time (they didn't get home until after 1:00) to set up for our guests.

J and her families (both girls are in school with my boys) arrived around 2:30, and we had a lovely afternoon. At some point, all the other neighborhood kids came over, and we had a very large chalk mural on our driveway.

Today it was pouring, so we opted not to go to shul. David had a noon flight (to California), so the kids and I have just been relaxing. The boys and I are still all in pajamas, playing computer games. Sofia is dressed, and now I think in need of a nap, since she just keeps crying.

Such a lovely wedding

This weekend, my friend R got married, and I was honored to be the one to conduct the wedding ceremony! I had gotten a one day "License to Solemnize" from the Governor's office, and religiously there is no specific requirement other than a bride, a groom and 2 kosher witnesses.

So Saturday morning my parents came up to stay with the kids, and David and I took off for Cape Cod. We were all staying in Hyannis - I'd booked 5 rooms (although L&M had to cancel for lack of a babysitter). David and I arrived first, so we walked into town looking for lunch. We started drinking margaritas with a couple sitting next to us. Eventually R&J and D&E arrived, so we met up with them. J&M joined us soon after. We went back to the room for a quick rest, and then back into town for dinner - and more drinking.

R&J had arranged a dinner for 14 of us (J's friends, too). It was so nice of them. Unfortunately, the waitresses are NOT nice (and D and I both had bugs in our drinks), and later (after David and I had left), the groom actually ended up getting KICKED OUT because he'd taken a photo of his friends and the waitress didn't want her picture taken. Silly - he'd just spent about $1000 there, and hadn't actually done anything wrong, but still he got kicked out. Makes for an interesting pre-wedding story, at least!

But we all had a lot of fun all evening. It was sooooo nice to get away without the kids, together with these good friends. The bride and the other women and I are a "gang" from the day school - we all have kids in 3rd grade together - and our hubbies also all get along well, so it's a blast when we get together.

Sunday morning, after breakfast and a flash-back to college dorm times (we kept going to each other's rooms to borrow things like conditioner and lotion and stuff), we headed over to the wedding. The reception was at a lovely Inn right on the water, and the ceremony was also on the beach. We all went to the reception first, because we had to sign the Ketubah. I had to run that ceremony, and J was signing as one of the witnesses (and we needed E there as a native Hebrew speaker in case we had any language issues - the other witness needed help signing his name in Hebrew).

David and I got to ride in the limo with R&J and their 4 kids (two each - her oldest daughter is in Sam's class). That was fun, because they are turning into such a lovely family.

The chuppah was set up right on the beach. Everyone was standing in the parking lot when the limo pulled up, so we sent them to their places, and then we processionalled in: me, then the groom's parents, then the groom and his kids, then the bride's daughters, then the bride and her folks.

The ceremony was lovely (if I do say so myself!). We'd found some nice explanations and readings, including a beautiful reading about StepFamilies and another reading about the Circling custom. It was so nice to have all the friends and relatives gathered in close to the chuppah, but the bride and groom and their kids were the primary people under the chuppah, with the 4 parents standing very nearby. Since I know both their parents and a lot of the family and friends, it was such an honor for me to participate.

After the ceremony, we all went back to the Inn for a very very lovely reception. They had a steel-drum band playing during the cocktail hour and a great DJ for the rest of the party. We danced up a storm! And when we weren't dancing, we sat on the beach and had so much fun talking and being funny together.

David and I left the Cape around 7:30, got home about 9pm. It was terrific.

Shes big, but sleepless

My little girl started "school" yesterday! A two and a half hour "Transition Group" at the Early Intervention Center. I've met the teachers before, but she's never had them for a group, so this is great practice for us in what we have to communicate to them. I'd given them a list of her words 2 weeks ago, but already we had more to add!

Here's Sofia in the morning with Dada, Sammy and Micah:

Here she is with her new backpack:

And here she is peaking out from behind my leg as we got ready to go into the Center!
She dismissed me with a cheery "bye", and they said she had a great time. I was excited until about 5 minutes before we got there, when I realized that I was dropping off MY BABY! Yikes! But I did get my pedicure while she was in class (the place I'd made my appointment never opened, but I found another place that could take me).

Sofia was very tired at the end of class, and lunged into my arms. For a few minutes she wouldn't even acknowledge anyone else, she just kept hugging me.

I was afraid she'd fall asleep in the car right away, but she managed to stay awake until we got to N's house. N is the lady I know who just had a baby with Down syndrome. N and her family are still adjusting to this unexpected fact. So I wanted Sofia to be awake when we visited, so we could show off. Sofia had fun exploring all their toys (N has 2 boys, each about a year younger than mine), and showing her many signs.

We visited for about an hour. Then she did fall heartily asleep in the car, and stayed asleep for more than an hour and a half. Woke up when we picked up the boys, and we all played on the playground for over an hour.

But once again, Miss Sofia would not go to bed. She just couldn't settle down. I ended up turning on the "Goodnight Show" on Noggin for a while, just to calm her down. She eventually went into the crib after 10pm.

Today I'm so tired, and I had thought she'd nap. So far I've fallen asleep twice, but she's still awake and exploring the house. Oy.

Piggies

One of the babies on my T21 forum died recently, and in her honor, many of us have been taking "Piggie" (i.e. pigtail) pictures of our kids. Sofia was no problem (other than keeping the bands in place long enough to get out the camera!), but it's taken me a few weeks to convince the boys to try.

But finally, they did it. Here's Micah:

And here is my SON (really, he's a boy, I swear), Sam:
All this was made easier by the fact that there was a case of Head Lice at school today and I had to do a nit check on both of them, so they were already in a "mommy plays with our hair" mode. Fortunately, they were both clean. Whew. And YUCH!

Sofia starts "school" tomorrow! She's going to the two and a half hour transition playgroup at our EI center. I'm so excited. Today, I had to go to the Israel Bookstore to buy my Hebrew text book for this semester, and I found the most adorable little backpack for her. I promise I'll take a picture of her tomorrow and post the update.

No Nap = Night Terrors

Drats. I hate this. When Sofia does not nap, she gets night terrors. And since she is in the process of giving up her nap (believe me, it's not my idea!), she gets night terrors alot. So right now she's screaming in her crib. I've tried comforting her twice, to no avail. Just have to wait it out.

We spent all afternoon at the pool club for closing day. Why in the world do pools close after Labor Day? It will still be plenty warm this week!

Sofia had a blast, running here and there. David actually joined us for a while, so she got some cherished "Dada Time". And of course she fell asleep in the car on the way home, at 6pm. But now...